I finally know where I stand
and I’m more lost than ever


but at least I’m not alone
but at least a lot of things

wound down to the end of my tether
in awe at the web I’ve crafted
inevitably to catch myself

did it break a fall?
or hold me captive?
I have caught me
between myself
and being free

a shroud of cool air
wraps around my bare shoulders
it’s 4:08 a.m.
I can’t sleep
I feel loathed to burden
the person who lies peacefully next to me
with the suffocating tendrils of
anxiety, shame, doubt
I fear the poison will spread
restlessness, contagious
painfully conscious

I am plagued by dreams
pain and anguish
blood and glass and teeth
shatter and sting in full color
dead or drowning
grotesque and livid

I’m either
awake and fretting or
asleep and writhing
disquiet as a state of mind
seething in my agitated paralysis

I am steeped in spirit
and it flows far smoother
than prose
apologies

pretty sure you’re magical
you have eyes like sunshine hitting a cup of  black coffee
at just the right angle
to ember and glow
molten and gleaming all at the same time

I only know because you spend hours looking into mine
into me
this started with you
but now it’s me too

I think the longer you stare
truly see something
the more complex and beautiful it becomes

you took me to the beach yesterday
we walked along the low tide
and you waited complacently for me while
I stuck my head and hands in the tide pools
I want to hear them
smell them
see from within them
you looked for bugs
while I communed with hermit *****
we traded pretty rocks
and put -most- of them back

you waited again
squinting in the sunlight up at me
while I scrambled onto the landing
of a derelict rusted husk
of a spiral staircase
leaning at the same angle as the tower of Pisa
so I could get a better photo

you lost me a couple times
you will learn that I tend to wander
I found a flounder head
we discussed over a mysterious carcass
whether it was a seal or a shark
I say shark
You say seal
you tried to hide your mild disgust
as I poked, prodded, and smelled it
still curious about it’s identity

and it dawned on me
you may be the first person
who actually has the patience for me

Can’t tell if my mind is moving too much
or my eyes aren’t.
It was just hailing,
but now an ochre sun is piercing through
the thick blanket of clouds.

—

Now the sky is blue.
The weather has released me.
The clouds fell from the sky
as this weight will fall from me.
I will walk in the woods.
walking on the gray—
on the haze.
It is beneath me now, in the ground.
As the clouds die, they feed the earth
with their corpses
and the earth will feed me.
With me.
Breathe me.

Life and decay are the same thing.

If I rot, will I not
simply become something else?

or maybe not.
The longer I inhabit this body
the more it seems like a simple
vessel, containing the multitude
that is me.
The universe has given me this gift.
This curse.
This magic.

God and science are the same thing.

“Nothing is sacred” and “Everything is sacred”
are the same **** phrase.

Heaven and hell are the same **** place.

No past, present, or future.
Just everything,
all at once.

Now is a concept.
Fate isn’t real
only because the future isn’t real.
Our perception of time is a coping mechanism.

Why else would the past feel so close?

Don’t just live in the present.
Exist. In everything.

The universe is only as big as our minds.
Our minds are infinite.
We are just blind.

my limbs are heavy
I’m frozen
glacially stuck.

time pirouettes around me
flies scribble emphatically in a stuffy room
a soft wedge of light scans the cobwebs
clinging to the wall
a cellar spider hails to me from a box of kleenex

this room is a mental illness ISpy
every little pen cap or thumbtack
every single thing
is another thought in my head.
my heart is pounding with the realization.
another thought here to stay

I spy
the millions of hopes and dreads and fears and doubts
scattered, strewn, stacked, piled
teetering on the edge of collapse
ever growing
yet also collecting dust

I spy
my body
defying gravity
I feel like I’m on Jupiter  
I think I’m becoming non-newtonian
brain still whirring like a contrite zoetrope

three fans drone in my ears
and I jump—
—startled
as the garage door opens
life continues around me

I should at least put on pants.

gender norms are like bottles
they are fragile
and take up space
they can be useful
but get in the way
and if you’re feeling stressed and restless
and wanna do something dangerous
you can take them outside
and break them

the earth is the only love i need
she has no forgiveness
but seeks it neither
she will take
and love [consume]my body
no matter
her change so chaotic and great
that with my stagnation i fall
into her
stillness is impossible
if all around you is moving
infinitely, endlessly
the earth will never refuse me
she cannot leave me
as i cannot leave her
we are entangled
she will bury me
in her arms, in her love
eventually

I feel like there’s too much on
        my mind to write any of it down

everything seems to be speaking
everything wishes to be louder
     all I can do is stare at my toes

my mind and body have been screaming
                         for months
    at me
            in general

it’s too much to write down
    too much to let it out

                                 I might explode
                           or just deflate


I feel like I’ve been treading water
          for longer than I can

and my mouth and nose are finally, slowly
filling with water
            trickling down my throat
                           filling my belly
                as I sink
                       beneath the waves

never knew how blinding the
sun could be before I hid from it.

the dark is a dangerously
safe place to be isn’t it?


I think I found a new emotion
it comes from experiencing
the beauty of things I find
repulsive

all the dream house
developments nestled
like cheap toys

sun glinting off the bumper
to bumper traffic
arcing above the horizon
semis blocking out the sun

parking lots
fractals of shiny beetle shell
car bodies disappearing into the glare

countless things
somewhere between awe and loathing
it’s kind of like a scream
stuck in your chest.


also,  I think I keep seeing people
who aren’t real.
they exist. other people see them too.
but they just seem out of place.
or maybe too in it.
too predictable

I say I hate public transit
but ya know
I think half the time
I like sitting on bart
more than doing
whatever the **** I left
the house to do

my mind wanders best when
my body is hurdling through
space at high speeds

I need cigarettes
and evenings filled with long sighs

                      and
                                 fragments
                                        mettled
                                          poems
                         and more cigarettes

                          waiting for my angst
                                     to form stanzas

                      tonight I’ll probably just
                                  cough a lot
                                          and go to bed early,

      
            but first I need cigarettes.

there’s something very special
about sitting still
in the black
in the tunnel on the train
a kid paces through the cars
the lights in the door shake
and a feather dances
in the corridor
a man is speaking
to his friend on the phone
he is drunk
but very tranquil
he left the club because even though it was some chicks birthday
it was too boring
and he fell asleep
and a part of me wants to sit in this moment forever
as he slurs onward
in far too many words
complaining that we’re still not moving
like music
oh **** we’re moving
and that guy is gone
and i think i might be drunk too

—

i’m learning
every day

how to live in a place
and always feel a longing for home
its empty here
i dont belong
and im not welcome
or im someone else

i dont think i know
the person you see
when you look at me

i feel crazy
like the love i show you
is invisible
or the words we say
sound different to me
than they do to you
our anger misplaced

we’re wrapped up
in something
all tangled
blind behind the mess

but we’re just hanging on so tight
to all the *******
that if we just let go
let it all go
we would find the
knots loosening
we would find our
blindness and
frustration
falling like ropes
releasing our bodies
so
we can be close
touching, even
but not attached

i think that’s what
love is?

oh here we go
write it out
write it again
however I like
we are no less typical
we were

someday
you'll be a sliver of life
quietly stinging in the back of my mind

I hope there's a few new
stray grays in your beard
just for me
I hope you find my hair
in all  your clothes
one or two trailing down your legs
like snakes as you shower
I hope they're green
I hope they make you cry
I hope I haunt you forever

you already haunt me

I wanna sneak around
and leave weird notes on your truck
while you're sleeping
and really I should leave you alone
but I just got this little itch
that you don't really want me to

but I've calmed down
I think I see you
where your head's at
and you're probably right

but so was I.
I'll get there.

there was a time, I think
it may have been your birthday
I was wandering
wondering, and I went there
I asked myself
"what will end this?"
"what will end us?"
I was almost too scared
but the end surfaced, without warning
"it'll be his self-doubt. he'll give up."                        

I was right.
but that doesn't matter
this morning the thought occurred to me
that maybe you knew
that what we had was due to expire
and I consumed that thought
with the expired milk in my coffee
and it consumed me.
did you?
what a cruel thing to do.

that photo you took of me
you said I looked beautiful
you looked breathless
but as the shadows darkened
I saw it.
I looked happy.
truly happy.
I felt a lump somewhere between you and my heart
and a welling in my eyes
I thought
"that's how happy he makes me"
that was friday
today is monday
that photo: please remember me then.
that's how happy you made me

okay, this is what I made.
this is what I'm -- made of ?
I can't specify
reality anymore.
there is no difference to me
between the edges
in life and the edges in dreaming
sometimes.
do you ever wake up
when you're already awake?
more like my consciousness
will occasionally splash me in the face with mortality
and a deep sense of presence
and unease.
anyway
this dreaming thing's got me thinking
feeling a little bit maybe
like i haven't woken up in weeks
and I wonder every day.
you know, when I was younger, I had a dream
that I smoked a cigarette.
the sensation was so real,
that although I'd never actually had one
I woke up believing that I was addicted to cigarettes.
the sensation was so real
so like the real thing.
when I was even younger, I had a
reoccurring dream about a house.
I was so young that I couldn't comprehend.
I was fearful and I could not move.
the earth was shaking and
I felt gravel in my skin and
something
was blocking my way to safety.
to safety, to the house.
I would wake with a start and run to
my mother's arms for comfort.
I recently stumbled across a photo
of a house.
a bombed out shelter somewhere in palestine
a very similar house.
and of course now I can't find it
but it haunts me...
--do you ever hear the music?
the music the earth makes when
everything is silent?
it's a kind of humming
so soft and complex that nothing
quite compares.
this is the music that I dance to.
so when I say I don't dance
I only mean that I don't dance for you.
I end up longing for moments
that I've failed to find here.
a sort of nostalgia
for things that never happened
or perhaps for the future.
for a painting I never made
a person I never met.
I forget sometimes that longing
is only that.
but nevermind.
whatever I was
I am no longer.
and that's fine.
I find that I don't recognize
my reflection, my expressions
anymore.
I'm drawing conclusions about who I am
from an outdated sense of self
a person I let go
when being her wasn't an option anymore.
and I lost a few things
in the move, so to speak.
a little patience here and there
some of those calloused morals that kept me quiet
and a handful of doubts that had been lurking
in the corners of my mind.
I'm almost at a loss.
If you were to ask me who I am
I would tell you to ask anyone else
or maybe that I'm a decorative houseplant

sometimes, when I'm in a crowded place
and the voices just get too loud
I just wanna leave. in that moment of
panic
I wanna walk away
just turnaround walkaway
and never come back
go find a rock somewhere
in front of the ocean
and I wanna just sit there and smoke like
six cigarettes

but I never do
I just let my eyes cloud over
and cringe at the peak
of every over-rehearsed laugh

sometimes it gets so bad
I grind my teeth til my bones hurt
like, on the inside

like when my dad told me today
"you know, you should try making more eye contact with people"
and I nearly lost it
I swear my teeth are still humming
and I try to tell him why without crying
and he doesn't understand
and he keeps trying to catch my eye

don't try to help me
and for god's sake don't
please don't
try to ******* fix me

I wait
I wonder why
the life
       blood
has stopped
flowing from my
hands

I am a sapling in winter
stunted
frozen
brittle

I miss this
the photosynthesis

the static whisper
between paper
and finger

smudges
scorches

come spring
come forth

and I am a tree

I can feel my patience
fading away
frustration with cold
and loud
and hot
and waiting
and hunger
I started tapping my
feet and fingers again
unrest for the weary
doubts and happiness
equally fleeting
disproportionately
resonating
through caverns
vast to hold
worlds
I have not maintained
patience falls ill
patience dies
patience waits for no one

unstoppable.
our being
is unstoppable.
being like when
you look up from life
from your absorption
just until a blink--
you look up and find
another looking back
and being is the split second
where every potential
exists at once
between you
and locked
in the gaze of two strangers.

i want to climb to the tops of buildings with you
and look down
then at you
and feel like i just jumped

you have my will power
sewn to you
so that when you walk away
it does too

summer came across the street
I misheard someone say
to another on the bus that day

summer came across the street
summer was there
but not with me

summer was the sun
bouncing off windows
and one by one
striking down the passerby
cursing all that shines

summer wasn't ready at all
for these misguided people
tending to fraying shadows
there is no bitter
no more restless heat
like summer come across the street

you wrote to me
"are you single?"

"sorry for being so blunt"

when I was little, back when things were as they appeared to be, I had a favorite music box.
there were three on the antique vanity in the master bedroom. there was the silver one, decorated with stars. sounded tinny and abrasive. it had a lid that made the music stop. and feet I remember it had three little feet. there was the wooden one. a fancy box with a fancy building painted over the lid. it opened on hinges to reveal all the tiny metal gears moving behind a pane of glass, making music with sharp metal parts. then there was the black jewelry box, with a red velvet inside. the mechanism was old and slow, would sometimes drift off before the key unwound. this one was my favorite. it played the saddest song I'd ever heard. sometimes though, it wouldn't play unless I moved the parts myself, but that never stopped me. it was the saddest song I'd ever heard, and I would listen to it over and over and over until one day it stopped making any sound at all. when I got a little older, I fixed it, took it apart and found what made it stop. and it still shudders and falters, slowly and fades away, like it can't remember how to play.
it's still the saddest song I've ever heard.
it stays the same.
it plays the same.
it fails the same.
it ties me down.
I need it now.

"so I'm single"

"I'm fine all is well"

"it wasn't fair to her"

can't get the tune out of my head now.
I miss it starting, slowing, resonating, stopping.
a drop of DW-40
a careful nudge
it speaks of me
that my idea of consistency
solidarity
is an unreliable music box.
never know when it'll play
but when it does, it plays the same.

"what are you doing tonight?"

"still in a relationship then?"

"man, I'm an *******"

*I need a melancholy music box tune
the saddest song I've ever heard
tie me down
hold me
and I can hold on too
otherwise I might float away
or fall to the floor.
everything was so good.
and now I can't be sure that I won't do something stupid
that I won't pull the the block from the bottom of the tower
I need the saddest song I've ever heard
to keep separate
what I want
what makes sense
and what is good.

the skinny beggar man
stands across the street
his hands open for lack of words
his knees and words falter-- stutter
next to him
a middle-aged lady
impatiently presses the crosswalk button
every day that I'm here
I see him. greeting
pleading, thanking
leaving, head hanging
and repeating
just for loose change
today he is wearing a shirt that
in big gothic letters
reads "royalty"
and I smile.
he is.
he is the king of frantic hellos
he is the king of pointy, unkempt hair
he is the king of politely harassing
he is the king of asking for what you can spare
he is the king of your reluctance, your refusal
he is the king of disappointed gestures
he is the king of gracefully moving on
he is the king of Piedmont Avenue

if i wrote for you
a million metaphors
i think still
we'd have a miscommunication
because this is gonna take
a lot more than ideas
a lot more than time

i was so **** tired
an hour and a half ago
i didn't have dinner
correction: i don't have dinner

what am i?
if i were okay i'd be asleep
god, why does hunger
have to hurt so bad

the space between
my shoulder blades
is burning up
my neglect for basic human needs
stays lodged in my throat
head pounding
teeth clenched
trying to hold on to
what i have left of exhaustion

please
sleep

you didn't tell me
about off-color lights
or storm drains so deep
that echoes can't find me

you didn't tell me how the summer
is warm to touch
but would scald my feet one day

you didn't tell me how the ocean
would show me the curve of the earth
would show me the tides
but then sweep me away
when I'm not looking
and lose me to the undertow

you didn't tell me that this
is all I have
and all I can ever know
but it means nothing

you didn't tell me to cover my ears
if life got too loud

you didn't tell me how to land on my feet
or stand back up
or how not to fall

you didn't tell me I had to wait
for better things to come
or that they usually don't

you didn't tell me that something
that's one thing
could be another thing altogether

you didn't tell me that closing my eyes
won't make it stop
or go away

you didn't tell me that I won't ever have a voice
or that you never did

you gave me "I love you"
and I told you to put it on the table
with the rest of the gifts

it's not that I don't want it
I just have to push a few of my doubts
out of the way to make room
I just have to deserve it

I would thank you
but I was told not to do that
I'm sorry I had nothing to give
I never do
that's why I'm confused

you gave me "I love you"
I guess now it's mine
if only I could understand.
and when I do
I can return it to you

this is the one time it's okay
to regift to the same person

are you gonna leave me hanging?
that's not a question I can ask
but I'm hanging
you tied fishing line to all my bones
and now I'm ******* hanging
you pull the strings now

and hours later
you walked me home
I wasn't that drunk
but I guess I am holding myself up
with my palms right now
so I don't fall flat on my face

and here I lose
the comfort of metaphor
(well, the stanza before)

I only do it
(get stupid beautiful wish-worthy drunk)
so these questions
these nagging doubts
these nightmares
will stop

but you don't
you keep showing up
everywhere
so they don't

and I wonder why
with a question mark
why I keep wishing
why I keep playing this
semblance of life in my mind
over and over and over:
where you want me
where you can't live without me

hopeless
I'm hopeless
because I hope
endlessly that you
will never let go of me

because for three years
I couldn't let go of you
I can't let go of you

I know that's wrong
that my words are toxic
that recognition would ruin everything
and still
I can't quit wanting
can't quit smoking
can't quit drinking
can't quit you

but don't leave
please don't leave
don't let me scare you
cos I'm scared too

you showed up
right at the wrong time
really, the exact moment

I forgive you
I salute you
for taking the liberty of asking
when I was too weak to

we could be happy
but then again we can't be
I know this is hard
I know how this feels
(you did it to me)

this is torture
for both of us
I promise

I know this is tough
I understand your reluctance
but I also know
that you can see
what you're doing to me
so if you're gonna **** up my life
the least you can do is be in it

"just don't break his heart"
they say

that's not going to be a problem,
I think

"I won't, I'll try not to"

but I won't
I'll never be the girl
who wrenches you in two

because even if I tried
even if I wanted to
(and I really don't want to)
I would be the one to break
I'd shatter on impact
I'm just not strong enough
to break your heart
the glue I used to patch myself up
the first, second, and last time
doesn't stay too well
I worked quickly
so he one, two, and three wouldn't see

I don't want any trouble
it's no one's fault but mine
for throwing fragile things
at walls dressed as men

I don't want anyone to think
to know that they broke me
so if you want me to go
I'll go without a fuss
although I might steal
some duct tape on the way out

I'd rather be taped-up-heart broken and lonely
than knowing I am the one
holding you back

a virtacle scratch
right down the spine
around and around
a glitch every  time
a word skipped
for every line
your head's intact
but what about mine

she's the woman who
looks like summer
in another country

unheard lines
words
resting on her lips

hands that
carried too many scripts
never to read

only see

she's an actress

although here she never speaks

I am a temporary installation

                                 they--
                                 don't know who
                                 don't know what

will someday take me down
                              
                             ­    and disassemble me
                                 and put me away
                                 under the ground

make room for the new ones

I am a self-constructed
statue

bear the label
"human being"

just that.

save breath for later
lungs in a tupperware
container
ziplock baggies full
of sounds
the ones, the words
I'm too tired to make

hang my eyelids
on the clothesline
to dry, leave the weight
behind

pull all my teeth
plant them in the ground
grow some new ones
place them in my mouth
and let them fall out
that's not how to smile

shoe fell out of a
stroller
I pause
I take a minute
"ma'am, I think you lost
a shoe"    pick it up
hand it back
"thank you"
continue walking

missed the bus
again
by a minute

old man with stormcloud hair
eyes indistinguishable from
an unseasonable sky
and I wonder
if perhaps he's blind.

the professor
name's John, I think
every day a goatee
a ponytail
and an honest smile
brings me flowers
sometimes.
pays in nickels
sometimes.
"have an easy day"
he says to me

man in the same brown
suit, mismatching
every day
coffee, hunched over
with something under
his arm
sometimes.
never seen him speak
just a scowl
and a solemn shuffle

the owner
of the bar next door
I think.
out for a cigarette
every 30 minutes or so
or move his car
he gets our mail
sometimes.
glasses on his forehead
never on his face
always a fleeting
noncommittal smile
pacing past the door
sly eyes.

there's the guy
stuck in the 70s.
every day
bell bottoms
a black bowl cut
it's a wig
I think.
a leather jacket
sometimes.
walks like he owns
the sidewalk
he doesn't.

the old man
the half-blind one
orders the same thing
always.
with his walker
his hands searching
haven't seen him
in a while

the big guy from
the burger place
across the street
no, not the famous one
the other place.
took his suggestion
got a burger
wasn't very good
but he's always so
cheery, gotta be nice

the one guy
blue shorts guy
stops by during his
run, to check
the selection.  back
an hour later in
pants and
a jacket now.
never buys a thing
wearing those blue shorts

the woman with
oddly spaced teeth
and hair
the short witchy kind
lots of shawls
and oversized tote bags
and cargo-capri's.
complained of
an allergic reaction
once
to god knows what.
keeps coming back though

a mother and son
mother, tired.
ten year old
private school boy
asks for too much
and too many questions
"did you make this?"
"are you really 20?"
"do you go to school?"
he asks so many questions
"yes, yes, no."
"why not?"
"well…"
mom saves me
distracts him away

the poor skinny one
the homeless man.
ill-fitting clothes
always.
women's
sometimes.
begging, cigarettes and money
has a tic, says
"hello! hi! hello!"
every few seconds
he's very persistent.
and very polite.
gracefully insane, I'd say

man in an orange
jacket, angry
because his bus is late
because he's from
New York
and deserves better
than you. shouts to
nobody
-----------------------
a little girl with her
daddy in line at
the grocery store
say's "daddy a heart!
a heart!"
and points to a drop
of water left by
a bunch of carrots.
he feigns interest
looks exasperatedly
in my direction
I do not humor him.
she is me.
-------------------------
there are a lot
of people with that
face

that face like there's
nothing left of the world
but the space left
by cracks in the sidewalk

is that my face too?

I have to stop living through
metaphors

don't start writing
surrealist poetry.

these days I feel like I
do most of my living
on the bus.

I woke up at 5 am
couldn't fall back asleep

I keep thinking I wish
I woke up
before the sun
I could do so many things

I like my time alone.

but I did nothing.
I got the time I wanted
and I ------- threw it away
like my -------- life
you know the one I
didn't want
the one that everyone else
wanted for me
the one  that everyone
else wants.

I'm a pathological pushover.

I wish I had wasted my time better.

you asked: "we're doing
something for Valentine's Day,
right?" I blinked. "uh, sure."

sorry about that.
I've just never really not
been single before.

surprise. up until
now, 'til you, I'd pegged myself
as "undateable."

I thank you for not
seeing what I see in me--
but what do you see?

you were a fair distraction
I kept you close
I knew you'd stay and
wait for me to reach to you
and I thought I was an empty promise
I thought I was cruel

I kept you closer
I stayed my distance
we were so different

I said yes
and still empty

but now…

now the little things
the things that swim in
and through all my moments
blinding me daydream
by daydream

you might save me
just by being
I'm afraid of this
of falling too far

I can't stop
your eyelids
the tiny gap in your teeth
your stepping stone vertebrae
your immaculate jawline

you
are a whisper from the top of a well
faintly echoing
all the way down
to me

I'm lost hungry and broke
I'm eating a 3 dollar sandwich
on the front steps of a bank
and chain smoking
I missed my bus
it's raining
passively
on my hands

I need a lot of things these days
and I have a lot of doubts
but nothing's changing
and nothing's getting better

I dropped out of school
I'm regretting a lot of things these days
but not that

pay my rent
keep my shoes tied
remember to eat and bathe
when I can

misplace and forget
nausea
exhaustion

I choke down my sanity
with a glass of water
every morning
the pills, the dependance
that's what makes me nauseous
and the cigarettes, the coffee, the whiskey
those too
like I said, the dependance

I'm not alone
and I'm not lonely
but my hands are cold
and my bed is colder

I remember a time
when we were new
and beautiful

before our lips
were blackened by lies

before the sleepless nights
circled our eyes

before coffee and tar
stained our smiles

before liquor heated
our foreheads and hearts

I remember a time
when we were new
and every breath blink and step
brought me closer to you

I think I'm going to write to no one
no one listens to me.
no one listens better.

and to the end of something good
and the coulda-been's
I'll grieve. to no one.

(because having)
no one is better than you.

I'm finally going to run
off to nowhere, with my
one and only
no one.

somehow it happened like this
---------------------what is
meant to be broken
must break

I am meant to be broken
I must be
otherwise I'd be happy
otherwise I'd wake up
and put my feet to the floor
because I'd feel as whole
as the night before

there would be no more shards of me
that litter my mind as I fall asleep
-
but nevermind

some things are
meant to be broken
-----------------------------
and so they break
themselves

is not fragility the
true nature of beauty?

and with things so delicate
I can only be clumsy
and I stumble blindly
with bruises and scars
because I know not how fragile
we really are

I hear a truck backing up in the distance
that droning, desolate
isolated
a sound so repetitive it's invisible
in-audible
sorry
diction is failing me
I might be drunk
I miss you
I miss you so much
and you're not even gone
well, I guess you're not here
but you aren't even gone

I found a photo of you
I'm packing
I finally started packing
three days before I move
I found a photo of you
from a while ago
before you left that note in my sketchbook
I need to leave a note in your sketchbook
you should probably know how I feel
you should probably know that even though
I may be distant and confusing and quiet but too loud
all I really need you to know
is that I want you
I want you
like I want summer to stay with me forever
I want you
and you think I don't know what I want

anyway, I found a photo
of you
smiling
and *******
why isn't this easier?
smiling
you don't have to say anything
just smile
please
please please
just be with me
a little bit longer
don't leave
just stay in bed
just look at me
like you're still sleeping
(and you are, I'm sure)
and smile
so I know

so I know
finally
for just a little bit longer

as I find my self older
than I ever was
I must come to terms
with a reality more plausible
than the one I choose to inhabit

I must accept
that people die
that things break
and that time passes

that time passes and
there will be there are
moments that I was to act
but didn't
and now
it's too late

I will find that
there will be people
whom I never meet
there may be
a love I belong to
but I will pass it by
or leave it behind

I need to see that fate
is merely a myth
that future
is a concept I own
as do all

as soon as I see
that life will never
be good to me
that life will never
be anything
or easy

maybe then
I'll wake up
alive and finally free

you are a pause

you are the second
before the air raid
an anticipation so loud it's deafening

you are the stillness, the static,
pins and needles between lightening
and thunder. 1. . . 2 . . . 3. . .

you are the heartbeat, last blink
separating bullet and flesh
crescent cuts bleed from empty hands

you are red lights. stop
knuckles white through a
raindropped windshield

you are elevators
early morning coffee stains
shifting eyes. look away.

you are the dead air
on a faraway radio station
bent antenna. turn the dial. silence

you are the needle
on that half broken phonograph
sidling arthritically away, back to sleep

you are the skip a beat
nervous lip bitten hesitation, envelope stamped
staring into the letter box. just let go

you are punctuation. . .

you are the hyphen
splitting words in two
leaving lonely nothings on different pages

you are 0:00

you are the force that
draws our eyes together
if only for an instant

it's a brown paper bag poetry kind of day --
one of those with multitudes of foggy fleeting
passive agressive hypotheticals

and I realize, that all I have to share
are half-assed transcriptions
of an intangible boredom
only born of a self-inflicted state of stagnation

this isn't a poem.
but my guess is that you're
indifferent anyway

my guess is that the words are
flowing through you
passing right through
no time to sink in

no, people like me
thoughts like mine
they're so tired
used up -- old news
no, we don't stick

you'll forget soon enough
what it is that brought you here
to this place
of tired hypotheticals

I saw a girl today
on the bus today
she was beautiful
in a  broken-a-little-bit-too-young
kind of way

her face a beacon
a mast rising above a restless sea

she was beautiful
musta been about 16
I saw for a second
fleeting, the child she coulda been

a cheap haircut
ill-fitting jeans
but she was beautiful
a story worth telling

and I couldn't tell her
no, not a single word

I don't like what life has made me
but I like what you have made me

I don't like to believe that anyone can change me
but I like what you have made me

I don't like that I'm blind and lazy
but I like what you have made me

I wish our lives weren't so far apart
so vastly different
you're a tough one
I learned to read people
before I learned to read books
and your face is a foreign language

I wish you weren't so, I don't know,
somewhere else
you'll disappear, vanish for days
you stay with me but leave so early
that my eyes are still adjusting to morning
as you step out the door

I wish that you would talk to me
that you would tell me who you are
because I don't know who you are
not at all, I just know
that if I did, I would like you
and so I like you

I wish when I was with you
when we're drinking
I could just shut the **** up
just for a minute
I might hear you wondering in silent volumes
like I know you do

you're like that one thing
that I have so close I can feel a pulse
but that I just can't hold on to
and I'm afraid, so scared I can't sleep
that I won't be able to hold on to you

and what if I can't hold on?
what if I was wrong?
what if you're just like them?
the other ones
the parade of dead-weight wastes
deflated infatuations
that tie me to the ground
and turn my eyes down

but this wasn't a sad poem
I'm sorry. let me tell you
I don't like how much being takes out of me
but I like what you have made me

you know, it's mornings like these...
lonely mothers on a bus
a man whose expression says less than I do
forlorn looks, contagious
passing from face to face
on air so thick like syrup
leaving impatient hands and eyes
sticky with fatigue

and comfort I take
for granted with ease
but on mornings like these...

out a window
I pick a fight
with an absent god
he stares back

and wary feet carry me here
I've never seen a place like this
so many people, their minds
somewhere else or maybe sleeping
they don't want to be here
who think of nothing but
what they don't have
and where they aren't

I pass my own eyes
a symptom of stillness--
the disease that kills itself
on mornings like these...

this is a place dead and thriving
a city hope-barron, bustling
blank, blank faces
float on a restless breeze

moving, always moving
but going nowhere

this ghost town abandoned
yes, but no one ever left